Assembly Required
by Lisa Telramor
Summary: Rumor has it that Winry has a cyborg boyfriend. Ed/Win, AU setting.


Winry worked on the robotic arm with her customer watching on. It was in the final stages, just soldering a few wires before adding the plates on top to protect the circuitry within. Karin, a repeat customer over the years, leaned against the counter and passed tools when Winry asked.

"So," Karin said, "I heard you have a boyfriend."

"Yeah." Winry held out a hand for a screwdriver for one of the tiny screws to hold the board in place. "It's not really official, but we're old friends and have been dancing around a relationship for years."

"And he finally made a move, huh?" Karin laughed. "He around? I'd like to meet him."

"Er." Winry paused. "He's around." If around was in the back room waiting for her to finish this order so she could update his circuits since they were having issues.

Karin raised an eyebrow. "Huh."

"What?"

"So the rumors involve a cyborg."

"He's human enough."

"Uh huh." Karin grinned. "You're such a techie I bet half the attraction is getting at his robotics."

"Well, I made most of the robotics," Winry grumbled.

"All the better."

Most of the time. Not when your boyfriend was in the back room in a sort of trance sleep because the circuitry to his brain didn't handle having his arm and leg dismantled well. Winry started tightening screws on the arm plates on automatic.

"Well, you'll have to introduce him sometime."

"Maybe, yeah." Rush Valley was a haven for techies and cyborgs and androids alike. The rest of the country? Not so much. It was no wonder Ed hid his arm and leg and grew his hair long. She finished putting plates into their proper positions in record time. The joints bent like they should and…yup, circuitry worked as she knew it would. "And here's your arm. If there's any glitches, let me know and I'll fix them up tomorrow."

Karin laughed. "Not doing your own diagnostics this time? For shame, Winry."

"We both know you weren't going to wait for me to do them anyway."

"True enough." Karin took the arm. "Thanks for rebuilding Gem's arm. Never going to Dean for a repair job again, honestly."

"That's what you get for trusting someone else with your robotics," Winry said smirking.

"Don't take so many trips then!" Karin clapped Winry on the shoulder. "The credits will go through tonight. Have fun with your boyfriend!"

Winry smiled at her back as she left before sighing. She'd been repairing Ed's arm when Gem's broke. She wished he'd stop breaking it. No matter what materials she used he seemed to rip through them. This was probably why technology and magic should never mesh. She stretched, feeling the strain of hours of detailed, finicky circuitry work in her wrists, shoulders and neck. Off to do more work.

Ed was on the back room table where she left him, breathing peacefully with his eyes half shut somewhere between awake and asleep. It had scared her years ago when she first saw him do that, like he was half dead. She knew now that it was a body's natural process of mediating the integration between organic and mechanical when the processes were running severely wrong. She always worried it would happen when Ed was in one of the fights that broke his arm, but Ed always assured her that adrenaline always overpowered whatever other mechanisms his body had going on. Twin red lights flickered on from the corner of the room.

"Brother's fine. He woke up for a bit and asked for water, but he's been fine."

"Thanks, Al." Most people thought Al was an android. One with a spectacular AI system, but an android nevertheless. Winry still didn't know what kind of magic Ed pulled to merge his brother's soul with a suit of armor, but she didn't want to know. She knew its results well enough that the how didn't matter. She surveyed the pieces of his new arm and leg, each lined up and waiting for assembly. "Want to help me put him back together?" She held up her tool box.

Al took it from her with all the care and precision of a surgeon's nurse bot.

There was six hours' worth of circuitry to go through. Today she'd try to cut down her best time to five hours.

When Ed woke up, she knew he'd look at her and go "What took you so long, I was asleep for hours!" and she knew she would yell and throw her biggest wrench at him to see him use his new cybernetic limbs to dodge. And she would help him hide them away under layers and a new prototype synthetic skin, and hold close to her heart that she was the only one he would trust to take him apart and put him back together.

* * *

_AN: Written for the prompt: __Fullmetal Alchemist, Edward/Winry, The Silver Metal Lover by Tanith Lee and "Some Assembly Required" s2 ep2, Buffy the Vampire Slayer_


End file.
